Personal conversion accounts of the members of the Hare Krishna movement are stories of becoming, or 'realisation' of individual religious identity. They often contain two distinct types of religious experience narratives: "Krishna's arrangements" and "ecstasies." With minimal plots, ecstasies are accounts of intensified and often mystical affectivity. "Arrangements" are stories of synchronicity, depicting a line of events seen as orchestrated by God that fulfil implied personal needs. Both "arrangements" and "ecstasies" propel the conversion process foundational for a devotee's personal narrative identity. Yet, their distinct temporalities suggest a different role in the construction of narrative identity. Paul Ricoeur distinguishes two temporal aspects of narrative identity. The first one is sameness (idem) or distinctive dispositions that make a person identifiable as the same through time. The second one is selfhood (ipse) of fidelity to the self. As loyalty to values and ideals, selfhood endures time. In the stories of conversion by Hare Krishna devotees, the dialectics of sameness and selfhood is expressed in the two distinct types of religious experience narratives. Sameness (idem) in conversion stories is expressed as arrangements, where needs implied in them point to the acquired devotional dispositions. Selfhood (ipse), on the other hand, is expressed as ecstasies. With raw affectivity as assertions of true selfhood, ecstasies enliven narrative identity and ground it in its values. Thus, the varied temporality of these two narrative types of religious experience and their figuration in personal life histories reveals how Hare Krishna devotees negotiate the dialectics of their religious identity involved in the conversion process.
